Tuesday, May 13, 2014

The Silk Map- Chris Willrich

The Silk Map
Chris Willrich
Pyr, May 6 2014, $15.95
ISBN 9781616148997
Odd couple adventurers, upper class poet Persimmon Gaunt and cursed thief Imago Bone, saved their son from evil by dispatching their offspring to a secret dimension; likewise Snow Pine the bandit did the same with her child (see The Scroll of Years). Now the even odder trio team up to bring home their respective children, but need a powerful ally who can tell them how to reach the Scroll. Thus the desperate threesome cut a deal with Great Sage; the monkey goddess incarcerated by essences on a distant mountain, who assigns them a quest in exchange for her help.
Gaunt, Bone and Pine must obtain the rarest of species, the alien Iron Moths, who spin cocoons made of ironsilk. They expect the journey to be dangerous, but none of the parents are prepared for competing against lethal rivals who possess pieces of the Silk Map that provides directions over the thousands of miles populated with predatory creatures not known to exist anywhere else to the Iron Moths. If they or their competitors make it to the nesting locale, ready to greet them is a murderous cult who lives to protect the Iron Moths.
The second Gaunt and Bone (and now Pine) Chinese fantasy is a fabulous franticly-paced quest adventure though fans should first read The Scroll Of Years to better understand why the bickering couple and their new partner banished their beloved children into another dimension. The Silk Map is an exciting action-packed thriller; as the protagonists never obtain a respite from deadly just as obsessed with possessing the moths’ opponents, harrowing nasty creatures greeting them with murderous intent on the road and finally the killing anointed defenders.
Harriet Klausner